Reality is a Matter of Opinion
by CaffieneKitty
Summary: A sort-of episode tag for the fourth season episode "The Monster at the End of This Book", where in order to finish the hunt that brought them to the town, Sam and Dean are introduced to the world of tabletop RPGs. Gen.


**Warnings:** **SPOILERS UP TO 4.18**Do not read this if you have not seen 4.18 or it will make no sense at all. Ever. Oh, and probably crack. But a weird kind of crack.

**Disclaimer:**I do not own this world, or any other worlds mentioned peripherally. I especially do not own that one that really likes suing people.

**Summary:** But what about the case... (A sort-of episode tag for 4.18)

**A/N:** This fic will also make _loads_ more sense if you own polyhedral dice, or at least have heard of them. Kripke put a potential case in a comic shop and brought up LARP-ing so this is entirely his fault. He's invading my turf now. Also, on the off chance anyone I game with stumbles on this, the OC's are _not you_. Or me. And especially not him.

_Originally posted on my Livejournal page September 10th, 2009_

-.-  
**Reality is a Matter of Opinion**  
by CaffieneKitty  
-.-

Jason smirked as the guys in suits left his store with bags of paperbacks.

Fans. God he loved fans. They were putting him through business college.

He whistled and went into the back room to get another set of the traded-in Supernatural novels for the Bargain Bin. More than one fan had showed up after the final book was released and sold off their copies in a fit of angst, heartbroken that Dean had actually gone to Hell at the end.

Jason opened the door and flicked on the light. A row of utility shelves held extra copies of books and comics so that only one set was on the shelves out front, making the display shelves less cluttered. He hated the back room. There was a draft from somewhere, and he often worried about his back-stock getting mildew.

Fans and LARPers. Crazy in a lucrative way. Jason, he liked the stuff or he wouldn't be trying to make this store work. He just didn't get as deep into it as some of them did. And he never LARPed. He'd rather keep his imaginary lives constrained to the privacy of his friend's basements, or the game room in the store.

Those guys were good, though. Actual suits and IDs and everything. Not like the batch that came through last summer playing Killer or something and bringing loaded water guns into his comic store. For some people, reality was an inconvenience. Nothing wrong with that, as long as they kept their supersoaker death matches outside on the street and not anywhere near his stock of absorbent paper-based products.

Haunted comic shop. Sure. Like he wouldn't have noticed a ghost in his own store. Jason snorted. He played Call of Cthulhu every other week, and had one character that he'd started as a mildly psychic paper boy and played up to Associate Professorship at Miskatonic University, and he _still_had a Sanity of over 35, even after the unfortunate Mi-Go incident. Nothing "supernatural" was going to get past him. No way.

Jason absently re-shelved a copy of "Deathly Hallows" that was laying open on a side-table and re-arranged the Harry Potter novels into alphabetical order again before continuing down the stock shelves. _Speaking of angst and woe-filled fans..._He'd have to remind Gia and Alan about the shelving system in the back. Again. Series order was fine for displays, alphabetical made things easier to find in the stockroom. Neither of them admitted re-arranging the books on the shelves, but it had to be one of them. It sure wasn't him.

Something rattled. _That old air conditioner trying to kick in again? Have to get that fixed before summer or it'll shake itself apart._

Jason pulled down another set of the novels, pushing aside the stacked copies of 'Bugs' to find the last battered copy of 'Asylum'. _Note to self, also tell Gia and Alan we aren't taking any more trade-ins of "Bugs". _

He stacked the completed set into an easier to carry block and headed back towards the stock room door with his arms full.

_It'd be cool, though, if there was a ghost here._ He nudged the lightswitch to off with an elbow. _If ghosts actually did exist._

Something flickered in the corner of Jason's vision. He jumped, nearly dropping the armload of books, and glanced over. A thick hardcover book was open on a side-table near the Fantasy section, pages flipping slowly. _I thought I re-shelved that book. Hunh. I'll get it later._"Damn draft." He shook his head and laughed at himself for jumping at nothing.

_Ghost. Hah. Too much imagination, Jason old man._He might spend his evenings pretending to be a handful of esoteric people with various groups of friends, and he might know the tactical difference between a three-pound and a five-pound cannon, and he might have missed a class or two because he'd spent all night leveling up his half-elven ranger on Ever-Quest, but he lived in reality. Reality didn't have ghosts.

As Jason shouldered open the door he shivered, a cold draft hitting him between the shoulder blades. For a second, he thought he could see his breath.

_I have got to get that air conditioner fixed,_he thought, letting the door creak shut behind him.

-.-

"Okay, so, now what?" said Chuck. He sounded a little shaky, understandable with all the holy wrath and demon smoke and everything that he'd previously thought was his own work of fiction coming to 3D-surround-sound Technicolor life in front of him.

"You're the prophet, you tell us," Dean grumbled, glancing at Sam before going to check on the unconscious woman. Sam sat on the bed next to the fallen cowboy picture, looking freaked.

The hygienist began snoring on the floor.

Chuck blinked and glanced around the room, eyes resting on the demonic knife, the hygienist, the open window, Sam on the bed, and the hygienist again. "I'm gonna need a ride home," he said in a very small voice.

Flutter of wings. "Allow me," said Castiel. Another flutter of wings and Chuck and Castiel were gone.

"Hey! Cas! You..." Dean looked at the ceiling and gestured vaguely at the unconscious girl. "What about her?!"

"At least he took Chuck home," said Sam, shaking off the bits of glass from the smashed picture and clambering off the bed, trying not to step on the woman on the floor.

"Yeah, well, I'd rather he took the hygienist. There was far less chance Chuck would wake up screaming and claiming we slipped him some roofies."

"You have a valid point."

-.-

The comic shop had been closed for a few hours when the bell above the door jingled.

"About time you showed up, Alan," Jason called from the back of the shop. "We're half-way through the order already."

Alan locked the door behind him. "Hey, Jason, Gia. Nick and Lou called, they can't make it for the game tonight."

"Well, I'm shocked," said Gia flatly, sliding a comic into a mylar sleeve with a back board and checking it off on the subscriptions book. "Stunned and amazed even."

"I know. This blows." Alan grabbed a stack of comics and started going along the display shelves, putting up new issues and taking down old ones. "We need more reliable players, there's no point in even running the game half the time."

Jason shook his head, opening another shipping box and checking the contents versus the waybill. "At least they gave us, what, two hours' notice this time?"

"More like an hour and a half."

Jason snorted.

"Nick and Lou suck," Gia grumped. "Even when they do show up they never play in character. They hardly even pay attention. They just roll the dice and talk about wrestling. We need new players."

"Is it alright if I put up a notice on the board tomorrow, do you think?" asked Alan. "To get new players?"

"Well, that's how we got Nick and Lou in the first place," said Gia. "Beer and pretzels players. Not serious about the game at all."

"I guess it wouldn't help for tonight, either."

"Not really."

"It shouldn't be this hard to find good players. I mean, we work in a comic store. Can you think of anyone off-hand that might be up for a game on short notice?" Alan asked, moving to the next row of shelves.

"Someone who doesn't suck?" Gia snorted. "Nope."

"Hey," said Jason, pulling the really well-faked FBI business card he'd been given earlier that day out of his pocket. "Kind of a long-shot, but I think I might know some guys who are definitely into playing characters..."

-.-

From her ID, the hygienist's name was Laura-Lee Gauthier and she was in town at a dental hygienists' convention. Since she was still breathing and almost entirely undamaged from her possession, they figured Lilith hadn't been occupying her for more than a few hours. Plans were made to get her back to her hotel with the least amount of distress, and hopefully before she woke up.

They were carrying her across the room when Sam's phone rang.

Dean whispered across to Sam. "Get that!"

The hygenist's snoring stuttered when Sam started to put her legs back on the floor. Dean shook his head, maintaining his grip on the woman's shoulders, keeping her elevated.

Sam pursed his lips in frustration. He shuffled the unconscious hygienist around so both her legs were gripped under one arm and pulled the phone out of his pocket. He spoke quietly. "This is Sam."

"Wow. You even answer the phone in character! Dude, you _are_hardcore!"

Sam frowned. "Who is this?"

Dean glanced up and whispered, "Who is it?" Sam made shushing motions with his elbow.

"Sorry, I'm Jason Armstrong. I own the comic store? You left me your card today?"

"Right, right, the, uh. Where we got the books." Sam glanced at Dean, who rolled his eyes and nodded towards the woman they were carrying.

"Yeah." said Jason. "Look, I know this is kind of short notice, and um, odd, but we've got a game at the comic shop tonight, and nearly half the players have bailed on us. Would you guys be up to playing a game of Call of Cthulhu?"

"Call of Cthulhu?" Sam echoed.

"Cthulhu?!" Dean echoed Sam's echo in a tight whisper, juggling the dental hygienist to keep from dropping her. "We got Hell, angels, and the Apocalypse, Sam! We don't frigging _need_Cthulhu right now!"

Sam made another shushing motion with his elbow. "It's at the store tonight?"

"Yeah! I mean, we don't normally invite new players unless we know them, but you guys obviously know the value of role-playing, and really, we're kind of stuck for players." A muffled voice called something indistinct in the background. "Alan also says to tell you we've got Mountain Dew, and we all chip in five bucks for a pizza."

"Just a sec." Sam muffled the phone against his shirt and whispered across the hygienist at Dean. "It's the guy from the comic shop."

"Cthulhu? Seriously?"

"No Cthulhu."

Dean's alarmed expression relaxed into a frown. "Did Casper show up?"

"No report of ghost activity, but he's inviting us to a game at his store. Tonight. We could check the place out."

Dean looked at Sam blankly, raising his eyebrows.

"Everything else aside, there still might be a case here, Dean."

Dean raised the hygenist's shoulders questioningly. "Can we get her back to her hotel safely first?"

Sam unmuffled the phone "When does the game start?"

"Nine, but if you can get here sooner we can get some characters generated."

"All right. We'll be there about eight-thirty."

"Great! Thanks!"

Sam disconnected and pocketed the phone. "We've got almost an hour to get her back before we head to the comic shop."

"Good. Great. Fantastic. Can we go now please, or are you expecting a call from the Mathlete Reunion committee?"

-.-

The tarp over the back window flapped. Dean scowled. "We're going straight to Bobby's after we get this hunt dealt with, right?"

"Yep."

"What did Lillith want if she wasn't there to kill you?"

Sam frowned. "I- I can't talk about it right now."

A muscle jumped in Dean's jaw. "Are we gonna talk at all about what happened with the-"

"Later. Still processing."

"Yeah. Okay. Me too." Dean nodded grimly and patted the steering wheel. "So. This thing we're going to is a game. These guys are a bunch of geeks sitting around pretending to be people that are just numbers on a sheet of paper, and roll dice whenever they need to figure out if they did something right or not."

"Yeah. It's a role-playing game. Nothing evil about them."

"You've played role-playing games?" asked Dean, raising an eyebrow.

Sam shrugged. "College. In first year, I ran across a group in student residence that had... uh."

"What?"

Sam looked sheepish. "It was a game where they were all pretending to be werewolves."

"Ah."

"It was, ah... a little awkward. Kind of a misunderstanding. Luckily they figured I was just trying to get invited to the game. I had to play for a few months after to smooth things over." Sam shrugged again.

"And 'Call of Cthulhu' is...?"

"The player characters are," Sam half-snorted, "supernatural investigators. Usually in the 1920's. It's all set in Cthulhu mythos."

Dean grimaced. "Man, I hate that stuff. Cthulhu, King in Yellow, all that. Makes my brain itch."

"It's not serious. And Cthulhu's entirely fictional. No hunters have actually run across any Chthonic or Lovecraft Mythos-related creatures."

"Yeah, well, we've heard that a few times before." Dean signaled to pull into the back alley behind the store. "I don't like the idea of people messing around with stuff when they have no idea what's behind it."

"Millions of people worldwide play Call of Cthulhu and have since the '80's. So far, no one has _actually_'called Cthulhu'."

Dean put the Impala in park and muttered, "There's always a first time. What's the plan?"

"Hang out long enough to establish the cover story, make excuses to go check the building out on our own one at a time. If it's clean, leave, if not, deal with it as required."

"Hanging out in a comic shop. Given what just happened with Lilith and Chuck and all that, not where I'd expect to be for the rest of the night."

Sam stared out the window at the brick wall of the building in front of them. "You wanna think about any of that yet?"

"Nope." Dean pulled the parking brake. "Let's go get our geek on."

-.-

Sam and Dean introduced themselves with the 'real' names of Mike and Kevin Martin. Getting recognized as using rock star aliases when they had first visited the store eliminated their usual fake ID options and real first names.

The guy who owned the shop, Jason, introduced them to Gia and Alan. Gia was a narrow-faced woman with short brown hair who eyed them as though she could already see the disappointment they would cause her. Alan, who had a goatee and was younger than the other two sat behind a standing cardboard screen with a pile of books, dice and notes.

Alan clapped his hands. "Okay, so, characters. How familiar are you with the Call of Cthulhu game system?"

"Not at all"

"All right, we'll keep it simple then. What type of characters are you guys used to playing?"

Dean looked at Sam.

"Uh..." Sam said with a weak smile.

Ten minutes later, Sam had a research librarian character and Dean had a mobster.

"What's a 'gun bunny?'" asked Dean regarding one of the terms being thrown around the table.

Sam coughed and smirked.

"Combat-focused character," said Alan. "Lots of guns but not much else."

"Good," said Dean, leafing through the weapons section of the manual. "I know guns."

Jason's eyes lit up. "Hey cool, you a wargamer too, Mike? If you've got time I've got a set of fifteen millimeter Prussians you really should see."

Dean raised an eyebrow at Jason, not sure if he was being insulted, challenged or propositioned. "A set of what?"

"Never mind," Sam waved a hand dismissively. "Have you got a washroom?"

Jason pointed. "Through the storeroom, door on the right, there's a Captain Picard figurine tied to the light switch string."

"Right." Sam exchanged a look with Dean, and went into the storeroom.

-.-

Sam bypassed the washroom where Captain Picard was being lynched and ducked into the room full of books. A central double-sided bookcase bisected the room and shelves lined all the walls. In the corner was a tiny card table holding an adding machine and a coffee cup better left unexamined.

The shelves were filled with books, alphabetized by category and stacked in the way that allowed the most books per space. Cardboard boxes full of books lined the floor along one wall.

Maybe it wasn't a ghost. From what Sam could see, most of the books in the room were mass market paperbacks, but there was a chance there was some less benign book among the others. An occult needle in a pulp haystack.

_Which is why we bring a 'magnet'._Sam glanced back at the game room doorway to be sure Dean had everyone's full attention and slipped the EMF reader out of his pocket. He walked along the shelves, sweeping the books slowly, top to bottom, with the EMF.

-.-

"So, uh..." Dean drew a complete conversational blank. _What the hell do I talk to these people about to distract them?_

"You guys LARP, hunh?" asked Alan, glancing up from notes printed tidily on three by five index cards.

"We what? Oh, right. Uh, yeah."

"You should have seen them!" Jason grinned. "Suits! FBI Badges! That was crazy."

Dean forced a laugh. "Yeah, I guess we do crazy."

"So, what, is it an X-Files LARP?"

"No, Supernatural." Jason said before Dean could open his mouth.

"Those books? Seriously?"

"Um. Yeah." Dean shrugged.

"Oh wow." Alan chuckled. "Obscure yet rabid fandom for the win. I didn't even know there was a game book out yet for that series."

"Well, there's that thing from Margaret Weiss," Gia said, not looking up from her notebook, "but I thought publication got pushed back again? It's been the 'Coming Soon' category of Previews since 2006."

Jason tapped his nose. "I heard from the supplier that it's done, but the release has been delayed so they can debut it at Comic-Con this year. It'll be available by August."

"Oh." Alan turned back to Dean. "So, did you guys get a play-test copy or are you running some kind of home-brew system?"

Dean realized from the lull in conversation and the group looking at him that they expected him to know what they were talking about. "Uhhh... the second thing."

Jason nodded. "Yeah, that's the best way to go, pick the system that works for you and go with it."

"Hunter: The Reckoning would almost work straight up." Alan said, scratching his goatee. "Although there's no way Sam and Dean were Imbued and you'd have to blend it with, I dunno, In Nomine or something to get the full mechanics in for the demons."

Dean struggled to keep a tight smile frozen on his face. The books Chuck had written being available to the general public, albeit a really tiny, fanatical section of the general public, was bad enough. Sitting silently at a table while a bunch of geeks dissected his and Sam's life and discussed demons as though they were fiction was a whole 'nother level of awkward. One of these days he was going to have to thank Chuck properly for getting their entire lives published.

"You could fit in demons under the Hunter system easily," Jason said, pushing up his glasses. "Just ignore the imbued powers and demonic messengers and stuff for the player characters."

"Well, except for Sam," Gia said.

Dean tensed even more. "What do you mean, 'except for Sam'?"

Gia looked up from her character sheet. "That whole psychic thing's gotta come from somewhere, right? And then there was that demon on the plane, what it said. And the whole Bloody Mary thing. Kind of obvious from the start were it was going."

Dean cemented his teeth in a grin to keep from saying anything. _I really, really need to thank Chuck for this._

Jason cocked an eyebrow at Gia. "You read the books?"

Gia shrugged. "Well, I got up to Route 666, but the whole racist truck thing lost me. Plus, no way would a horndog like Dean ever have a stable relationship for even a week, never mind one he'd come back to after a year or whatever it was. Plus, Cassie suffered a bad case of 'screaming ninny' syndrome."

Dean growled. "That so?"

Gia shrugged. "No offense to your fandom, Mike. Just my opinion. Probably great for LARPing though." She lowered her head over her character sheet again.

"I tried to get into the books too," said Jason, "but they never really grabbed me."

"Oh. Well." Dean fought the conflicted urge to sarcastically apologize for their lives not being interesting enough to hold the attention of a guy who owned a comic store.

"Yeah. Too many continuity errors."

Dean blinked. "What?"

"Like, was Sam at Stanford for two or four years before Dean came and got him?"

Dean frowned. "He-"

"Are we gonna game or chatter, guys?" said Gia, tapping a pencil on a 10-sided die.

"Probably a good idea." Dean pushed back his chair. "'Scuze me a sec. I'll see what's keeping Sa- Kevin."

-.-

Sam tucked the EMF behind his back as someone stormed out of the game room.

"Dean?" Sam whispered.

Dean held out his hand. "Sam, gimme the EMF, I'll look around, you go distract the Geek Squad or I swear to god I'm gonna punch one of 'em."

"What? Why?"

"Just- the whole book thing. Our lives have too many 'continuity errors', and they know way too much about us."

"They think we're fictional, Dean. None of them believes Chuck's books are real."

"That's just it." Dean gestured back towards the game room. "There's a bunch of people in there, talking about demons and they don't think they're real. Some demon comes into this guy's shop and flips the black eyes at him, he'll figure they're 'LARPing' and get killed."

"Not much we can do about that. And you gotta admit, being 'fictional' makes for a hell of a cover."

Dean shrugged. "I guess."

"Speaking of cover, you should get back in there." said Sam, turning back to the shelf he'd been scanning.

"Oh no. No way. I'm dead serious, Sam." Dean jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "I'm gonna punch one of 'em if they keep going on about the damn books."

"Dean, I've scanned less than half the room and nothing. If there's anything at all here it's got to be really localized. Let me do the rest of the room, you keep them distracted. Sooner we get this found and dealt with or confirmed to be nothing, the sooner we can get out of here."

Dean's voice took on a cajoling tone. "Why do I have to go hang with the geeks, Sam? They're your people."

Sam didn't answer, just glared at the books as he ran the EMF slowly along the shelf.

"Fine. But you owe me." Dean returned to the game room.

All Sam wanted to do was get done in the building and get on the road. He'd been the one pushing to finish the case here, and now he regretted it. With any luck and no more interruptions he'd get the room scanned, find nothing, and they could get out of here.

He was losing patience with everything. Maybe the events of the day were starting to process and sink in, but it didn't matter. He couldn't wait until he and Dean could take off and leave this town in the Impala's dust.

The EMF squealed, Sam quickly clamped a hand over the speaker and glanced at the game room door but everyone was deep in conversation and Dean was looking pained.

Sam looked back to the bookshelf at the brightly colored set of hard-bound books which had set off the EMF.

_No way._

He raised the EMF again, hand still covering the speaker. All the lights lit up and the squealing speaker buzzed against his hand.

_Hunh._

-.-

_Meanwhile, back in the land of the geek..._Dean was glad the topic had shifted away from Chuck's books, but he wasn't exactly sure what the topic had shifted to.

Alan rolled some dice and handed Jason a pre-printed sheet of paper. "This is what you find from the diary, also McGee loses two points of sanity, Jason."

"From a _diary?_" Dean blurted.

"Yep. Gaining Mythos knowledge causes Sanity loss."

"It's an antiquated system of game mechanics," Jason said with a slight sniff. "We _could_use d20 or even GURPS, but-"

"Back, vile heathen!" shouted Alan, making a cross with his fingers and hissing.

"Yeah, that."

Dean blinked. "M'kay."

Alan bobbed his head sheepishly. "I mean, sure it's an old mechanic, but it works fine after the combat rules are tweaked, why change it?"

Jason muttered, "Because there are so many _better_systems-"

Alan dramatically jammed his fingers into his ears. "I will not hear you speak of such things!"

Jason rolled his eyes.

"Well, anyway," said Gia, "The game mechanics don't really matter, it's all how you play your character."

"Yeah," Jason nodded. "I mean, you guys LARP, so you're used to pretending to be other people..."

"Heh." Dean smirked. "Yeah, you could say that."

Alan took his fingers out of his ears. "Sure! Just when it's at a table there's less moving around and stuff so you don't have to worry as much about how your character moves, and more about how he talks."

"Yeah?" said Dean, distractedly listening for sounds in the other room.

"You've got a mob thug, right Mike? Say you're gonna threaten someone. You could just say 'I threaten the guy' and roll some dice, or you could-" Alan's voice shifted into a more nasal, whispery, lispy tone, "'Make him an offer he can't-'"

"Don't!" Dean ordered, attention snapping back to Alan.

"What?" Alan blinked.

_Forty years in Hell listening to that, that._"Just... don't do that."

"Thank you!" Gia sing-songed happily, head down over her character sheet.

Alan turned to look at her. "You don't like my Brando? Everyone likes my Brando!"

"Um," said Jason, smirking. "Actually, Alan, it's annoying as hell. We just never said anything."

"What? Why?"

"We didn't want to hurt your feelings, but Mike here is new and doesn't have any compunctions about your delicate sensibilities."

Alan's face fell. "You guys could've said-"

"Uh, I'm gonna go find the..." Dean trailed off in a mumble, standing up and hoping to get out of the room while the gamers bickered.

Sam came through the doorway just then with an armload of soda. "Hey, uh, that's a nice set of um, Harry Potter books you've got there."

Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother.

"What, the hardcovers? Yeah." Jason erased the circle around his Sanity total and moved it two points down the scale. "Kinda sad. They belonged to a kid, Mark something. He was maybe ten years old, used to be in here all the time. Found out he had a brain tumor, went blind, spent the last year of his life in hospital. His mom read him the books."

Alan nodded with a sad smile. "I think his friends, Pete and Joey said she had his ashes put into a little cauldron, too."

"His mom's cool." Gia nodded, not looking up.

"He loved Harry Potter," Jason continued. "He died just after the last book came out."

"So you're hanging on to the set for sentimental reasons?" Dean asked.

Jason went 'pft' dismissively. "Hell no. I'm hanging on to them 'till Christmas. It's the only time of year hardcovers will sell."

Gia huffed. "You have no soul, Jason."

Jason sniffed. "I've got a soul, it's just a very unsentimental and pragmatic soul. Unlike you and Mr. 'I've-got-an-oak-wand-with-a-unicorn-hair' here."

"Hm?" Alan said, looking up from the reference manual.

"Me, sentimental?" Gia blinked.

"One of you is. _Someone_keeps putting that particular set in series order instead of alphabetical, and leaving that last book on the break table."

"Not me."

"Not me."

"It's got to be one of you guys. It's definitely not me," said Jason with finality.

Sam and Dean exchanged glances.

-.-

A short while of ensuring their cover was solid later, Sam and Dean managed to meet in the stock room. Sam went straight to the Harry Potter books and pulled one off the shelf.

"These books pinned the EMF. This one in particular is the one they've been finding on the side table."

"So the kid's haunting the book?"

"Must be. They said he was cremated, right?"

"If his mom stuffed him in a cauldron without cremating him first, I doubt they'd think she was cool." Dean glanced at the door to the game room. "Although with this bunch, who knows."

"Easy enough then." Sam held the book out to Dean. "Take it outside and burn it."

Dean raised his eyebrows.

"What?"

"Kind of odd, hearing you suggesting we burn a book, never mind one haunted by the ghost of a kid."

"So? There are billions of copies of this book world-wide."

"But only one ghost of Mark. You don't think we should figure out what he wants, help him out?"

Sam huffed. "We don't have time to be sentimental or mess around with this penny-ante stuff anymore, Dean. We're trying to stop the Apocalypse. We don't have time to hand-hold a ghost, no matter how old he was when he died."

Dean looked at Sam.

"What?"

Gia's voice rang out from the game room with an accent so fake it was impossible to tell what it was intended to be. "Oh Noooorris! We neeed you!"

"Is that you or me?"

"It's not me, I'm 'Bugsy'. Must be you. Maybe they need you to read the Necronomicon or something."

Sam smacked the novel into Dean's hand and glowered his way back to the gaming room.

Dean watched his brother go. Sam used to be the one that argued for leniency and tolerance when Dean was off the rails on a hunt. He'd changed so much, even before Dean had died and gone to Hell. Since Dean had come back, Sam was sometimes like a whole different person.

Ducking into the alcove leading to the store's back exit, Dean grabbed the knob to the alley door. It didn't budge. He looked the door up and down. Not locked... He tried the knob again. It wouldn't even rotate.

"Son of a bitch."

He took off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm. The little window in the door had security screen running through it, but Dean figured he could explain it breaking as an accident. If it broke.

Dean hit the pane of glass full force with his elbow. It didn't break, and a ray of funny-bone pain shot up into his armpit.

"Son of a bitch." Dean whispered, hopping around a little.

A child's weak voice rose. _"Nooooooooo..."_

-.-

Sam erased a circle on his character sheet and dropped five points from his Sanity. The group around the table was cracking mostly incomprehensible jokes about him completely blowing his Mythos roll.

_Come on, Dean, the sooner we get out of here the better._Sam was regretting chasing this case even more than before. He'd only pushed for it because he wanted to get away from the situation that had just happened. Lillith and archangels and prophets and the Apocalypse and everything, but the more he tried to push it away, the more inevitable it felt.

In the back room there was a muffled thump and eerie cry. The gamers around the table froze.

Sam glanced at the doorway to the stock room, ready to jump up if needed. No big movements, no yelling, nothing breaking, just the ghost getting vocal. No panic. Except among the gamers.

"What the hell was that?" Alan said, wide-eyed.

"That was frigging creepy," said Jason, pushing his glasses up. "Where'd it come from, the alley?"

Sam held up a hand. "Uh. It's uh, nothing. De-" Sam shook his head, "Mike's just doing some sound effects. For atmosphere."

"Awesome!" Gia beamed.

"I told you, LARPers."

Dean poked his head around the corner of the doorway. "Hey, 'scuse me guys but Bugsy Malone needs to have a private discussion with geek-boy here."

"He's Norris Abernathy," Gia said, giving Sam's character's name.

"Whatever." Dean disappeared back into the stock room.

"Pardon me," said Sam, standing.

"No problem," said Alan, "You're going to be catatonic for the next few in-game hours anyway after that roll."

"Perfect." Sam stalked out of the room.

Dean was leaning against the table in the stockroom with the book in his hands, undamaged.

"Why didn't you burn it?"

"Kid's got the place locked down. You heard him?"

"Yep. So did they."

Dean raised an eyebrow.

"I covered. They think you're the king of sound effects."

"Fantastic. Doesn't change the fact that no one's getting out now 'til our pal Mark lets 'em out."

Sam frowned. "He's finally got someone's attention and now he's not gonna let anyone out until he," Sam gestured at the Harry Potter novels, "gets read to. Great."

Dean looked at the long row of brightly colored spines.

"Not _all_of them?" Dean boggled.

"No, no, they said the last book keeps taking itself off the shelf and lying open on the table, right?"

Dean flipped through the book to find the first page of Chapter Thirty-Five dog-eared. "There. He must've died before his mom finished reading it to him."

Sam looked around "We're stuck in here so salting and burning isn't a viable option. The place is loaded with paper, it'd all go up."

Dean looked down at the book, flipping the pages. "Glad to hear you draw the line at setting fire to a bookstore."

"What?"

"Nothing. Salt's in the trunk anyway, unless you've got your flask?"

Sam patted his jacket, passing over the flask that currently contained about the furthest thing from salt imaginable. "Naw, I must've left it in my bag."

"So, we have to keep the gamers occupied so none of them tries to get out, and we have to read the kid the last three chapters of this book." Dean hefted the heavy tome.

"Yeah, before he decides to get violent to get his way and start throwing books instead of rearranging them."

"Great. You want geek-sitting or story-time circle with the dead kid?"

Sam held up a fist and raised an eyebrow. Dean rolled his eyes and raised a duplicate fist.

"Hey, Bugsy! We got combat coming up here. You in or what?"

Fists stalled in the air, both Winchesters looked over at Jason who was standing in the game room doorway.

The store owner stepped into the stock room and looked between the two Winchesters. "You guys aren't still LARPing while you're here?"

"What makes you think that?"

Jason raised his fist, mimicking the Winchesters and smirked in a knowing manner. "Every LARP I know uses 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' instead of dice as a decision-making mechanic."

"No." Dean and Sam lowered their fists. "No. We never mix LARPing with uh... other stuff."

"Whatever. There's combat brewing and we need tactical support, Bugsy." Jason disappeared back into the game room, chuckling.

"Never mind," Dean picked up the heavy novel and smacked it into Sam's chest. "You read. I'll keep the geeks occupied."

"Hey, Norris!" Alan called from the game room. "You just woke up in time to get your ass kicked! Come join the combat!"

Dean looked at Sam. Sam looked down at the book in his hand.

"More cover story?"

"More cover story." Sam put the book back on the shelf and followed Dean in.

-.-

Dean cleared his throat. "'Hey, Boss, you want I should ventilate this thing?'"

Sam choked on his Mountain Dew.

Alan smirked. "Why yes, my good man, deal with this foul creature."

According to the layout and scale of the miniatures on the map the group was being menaced by a twenty-four-foot-tall plush Barney the dinosaur doll.

"Sorry about the stand-in figure." Alan shrugged sheepishly.

Dean smirked. "Hey, any excuse to kick the crap out of Barney."

"I haven't got the actual figure painted yet, what you're up against is something that looks like this." Alan flashed a picture from a manual around the room. Something with tentacles. Dean hated tentacles.

"Shoot the damn thing."

"Okay. So you duck and fire..." Dice rolled. "You hit. It doesn't dodge. Roll damage."

"That's four of these, right?"

"Yep."

Dean rolled the dice loudly. "Uh... 18."

"Wow." Jason nodded appreciatively.

"Did I kill it?"

"Nope," said Alan. "But you actually did some damage."

"Holy crap. What in hell kills these damn things?"

"Moonlight-brewed asphodel," muttered Sam under his breath, glaring in a random direction.

"What?" said Gia.

"Is that in the manual?" Alan said, frowning.

"Never mind," Sam shook his head. "It's nothing. Hey, D- Mike?"

Dean looked bemusedly over at his brother. "Yes, Kevin?"

Sam beckoned Dean to lean closer as the other players took their combat rounds. "You need to screw up."

"What?"

"Fumble. I did it earlier and was knocked out. If you make a horrible roll, it'll probably knock you out, you can go read the book to Mark."

Dean looked at the sparkly purple dice he'd borrowed from Gia. "Okay, yeah. This is a giant pain in the ass."

Sam shrugged. "Unless you've got a better idea.

"Okay, top of the round, monster's turn, and it's attacking..." Alan rolled some dice. "You. Silvia."

"Oh, drat." Gia sighed in her character's indeterminate accent.

"Oh no it ain't," said Dean. "Bugsy throws himself in front of the lady and blocks the attack."

"What?"

"Can he do that?" asked Jason.

Alan shrugged, "He's right next to her, I don't see why not."

"I _can_defend myself." Gia crossed her arms.

Dean looked levelly at Gia. "You're an elderly academic with a two-shot pistol. I'm a freaking _tank._Let me do my job here, alright?"

Gia blinked, then beamed. "By all means, then!" she said with a grand gesture.

"Right then, Bugsy," said Alan. "It swats at you with both front claws, in a kind of 'squash the bug' maneuver." Dice rolled. "It hits, roll dodge?"

Dean rolled the dice and scooped them up the second they stopped rolling. "Oh my god."

"What did you roll?" asked Jason.

"He rolled a 98." Sam said, giving the same number he'd rolled that made his character catatonic earlier.

Gia gasped and covered her mouth. "Oh my god. _Dude._"

Dean did his best to look crushed, or something. Hard to do over a piece of paper.

Alan scratched his head. "Okay, wow. Um. So," he muttered a bit. "Max damage, doubled, critical... hm." More dice rolled. "Heh. Well, I guess the best way to put it is this. It started out as a 'squash the bug' maneuver, and turned into a-" he interlaced his fingers and pulled them apart with a snarl. "Kind of a 'rip into pieces' maneuver. Blood and guts everywhere."

Jason and Gia went "Oooooo." Sam looked bemused.

Dean felt slightly ill. "So I'm dead?"

"Yes, very dead, as the monster starts chowing down on your corpse."

"Probably a good thing."

"Since it's just us academics left standing," said Jason, "I think we should use Bugsy's noble sacrifice to get the heck out of Dodge, yeah?"

"Well, _yeah._" said Gia. "Wow. That was awesome!"

"Hey, since I'm dead, you mind if I-?" Dean pointed to the stock room.

"Browse away!" said Jason, waving.

Sam looked like he might choke.

Dean narrowly prevented himself from facepalming as he left the game room. _If I'd've known how well that would work, I'd've gotten killed off sooner._

When he entered the stock room, the book was lying open to the dog-eared page at the start of Chapter Thirty-Five. "Yeah, yeah, okay, fine." Dean grabbed the book from the side table. "Don't see why Tessa and her buddies couldn't read you the damn book."

There was a quiet rattle that probably wasn't the air-conditioner.

Dean picked a spot behind a shelf with some boxes and settled in, re-opening the book to the dog-eared page.

"Oh, and just so you know, if anyone messes with my car while you've got us stuck in here reading you a bedtime story, you are toast, kid."

Dean thought he heard a giggle. He started to read.

-.-

Nearly an hour and a half later Sam peered around the corner of the bookshelf.

Dean looked up with a smirk. "Mrs. Weasley kicks _ass_, dude."

Sam glowered. "Almost done?"

"Naw. I'm done the chapters, but it's got an epilogue yet to go."

"Great," said Sam. "Just hope he's not a Harry/Hermione 'shipper."

"A what?"

"Never mind. I'd offer to take over for you but your character's still, uh. Dead."

Dean snorted. "Whatever. I'll be done in another few minutes here. Be ready in case the kid acts out."

Sam returned to the game room.

-.-

"...'All was well.'" Dean turned the page but found the next one blank. Closing the book he whispered to the room, "That's the end, dude. You gonna move along quietly now, or are we gonna have problems?"

The faintest sound, a satisfied sigh followed by the clicking of locks and latches. Dean picked up the EMF and ran it over the book in his hand. The meter didn't flicker at all as it passed over the wizard-bedecked cover. Dean unfolded the dog-eared page and re-shelved the book.

"'bye kid. Good luck with the afterlife."

-.-

"Too bad your character was dead for so much of the game, Mike," said Alan as he packed up game books.

"Yeah, well, dice." Dean shrugged. "What can you do?"

"Great special effects, though," said Gia. "How'd you do that creepy moaning? Your voice sounded so different, like a child or something."

Dean smirked. "It's a, um... LARPer's secret."

"Fine fine." Alan looked around at the rest of the gamers. "We kind of discussed it among ourselves, and if you want to join the group you're welcome to."

Dean blinked. "What?"

"The gaming group. We game every two weeks, you and your brother are welcome to come back."

Dean shook his head. "I'm sorry, but me and my brother, we're just sort of passing through."

"Told you," Jason said. "They're dedicated LARPers."

Out behind the comic shop, the Impala's horn honked. "That's Sam. I mean Kevin."

Jason snorted and shook his head.

"We gotta go. Thanks for, uh..." Dean mumbled something and left the building.

Sam was sitting in the passenger seat, silent. Dean got in and started the car.

"That was, uh. Different," Dean said after the silence stretched a little too long. "A unique experience."

"She wanted a deal, Dean."

Dean nodded. "Ready to talk about it now?"

"Yeah."

Dean listened to Sam as they drove through the night with the tarp on the back window flapping.

-.-.-  
(that's all. meh.)


End file.
